Grateful Dead Drummer Mickey Hart Announces Launch of Cannabis Brand

Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart has officially joined the Green Rush by announcing his new line of 1/3 gram mini-joints stuffed with a strain whose history is inextricably intertwined with the famed traveling jam band. Such is the debut of Hart’s brand Mind Your Head, which will be available for purchase at various Northern California dispensaries.

To celebrate the release of his new single serving joints, the drummer did an interview with music magazine Relix in which he waxes poetic about his debut product. Dead aficionados will no doubt find exciting the tin boxes of 10 of the mini-joints, decorated with a percussion-minded skeleton created by the musician himself.

But surely the most exciting aspect of the release is that the strain packed in the joints holds special significance for the Grateful Dead’s legions of fans. Chemdog is an indica-dominant, high (21 percent) THC flower that clocks in at 1.5 percent CBD. Legend has it that the strain was discovered by a man named Chemdog in 1991 outside of a Dead show at the Deer Creek Amphitheater (now known as the slightly less-poetic Ruoff Home Mortgage Music Center) in Noblesville, Indiana. From then on, Chemdog the dealer could often be found in the Shakedown Street vendor area located outside Grateful Dead concerts, and Chemdog the flower became a popular high among the impassioned adherents of the jam band. It’s even rumored to have spawned today’s beloved Sour Diesel, and there is less substantiated evidence that says Chemdog spawned OG Kush as well.

Mickey Hart/ Instagram

For the launch of Mind Your Head, Hart partnered with Oakland-based cannabis company IC Collective, and the brand tapped the legendary dealer for a quote in the press release for Mind Your Head; “As a loyal Deadhead, I’m proud to see Chemdog featured in the first product from Mickey Hart,” commented Chemdog. “[The Chemdog strain] plays an important role in Grateful Dead history and I think it’s exciting that Mickey is bringing it full circle to fans and cannabis enthusiasts in Mind Your Head.”

“You’re able to function well on it,” said Hart of the cannabis in his mini joints. “You can do your work. And it’s a lot of fun! It allows your mind to travel. It’s really about adventure and exalting the consciousness. Like a superhighway of the senses. That’s what this whole thing is about. It’s about consciousness raising. Just like the Grateful Dead is. We raise consciousness. We move minds.”

But of course, Hart’s claim to the industry is somewhat unique. After all, few other famous people can lay claim to being a member of a band that may have popularized the term “420” to refer to reefer, whose lyrics soundtracked the highs of several generations, and whose 1970 Haight-Ashbury drug bust (which Hart was not present for) is the stuff of San Francisco legend.